Portable media centers are presently in their infancy. Panasonic and a couple of other companies are making little tv sets with AM/FM radios attached; Sony, AIWA, Sanyo, JVC, Superscope, and others are making cassette machines with AM/FM radios attached — one Japanese firm is even making a cassettemachine-radio-clock combo — but the true total media center has yet to have its heyday.

I’ve been waiting for one for a year now. Imagine, a slim briefcase weighing only a few pounds. You open it up and there is a high impact plastic panel with controls and functions for a digital clock with alarm, a stereo cassette recorder, an all band radio, a pocket calculator, and a mini tv set that is switchable from U.S. standard 525 lines to European standard 625 lines. And it runs on batteries, anywhere in the world. The concept of putting them all together, making them operatable internationally, and sandwiching it all into a small briefcase is mine. But the electronics belong to the Japanese. In fact there is nothing futuristic about the portable media center except that nobody’s made one yet. All the technology exists to turn it out today, fight on the assembly line between the color tv’s and the video tape machines.

In the January issue of CREEM you’ll find a special audio-video supplement chock full of home entertainment electronics. Don’t miss Richard Robinson’s delightful blitherings in the second annual CREEM electronics supplement.

As to who would want one, ah so, this could be the problem. Just media addicts like me. I want one, So if somebody wants to separate me from my idea, please send me a sample. I do a lot of travelling and would love to be able to wire myself into my media surroundings by just flipping open a small case and setting it on the bureau.

At the moment I have to settle-out. There are mini-media centers being made, but no one product encompasses all the media functions we’re accustomed to having available to us. There’s the line of cassette machines with AM/ FM radios built in: Panasonic’s Model RQ-432S with AM/FM radio, cassette machine, and built-in condenser mike; Sonv’s AC/DC model TC-224 with a cassette machine, built in mike, and three radio bands: AM, FM, and public service in case you’re into monitoring emergencies; and Superscope’s Model CR-1000 that, like the Panasonic, have AM/FM, cassette recorder, and built-in mike. Prices range from $80 to $150 depending on the features included. Although none of these configurations are as small as a cassette machine or AM/FM radio couldhbe independently (or put together for that matter), they are extremely portable and have the added advantage of recording radio broadcasts off the air without having to hook up two machines as the connections are made internally.

A little bit closer to what I had in mind are two Crown products which are obviously geared to businessmen. One is their model CL-120T ($229.95) which' has an AM/FM radio, battery powered clock, and an eight digit calculator all in a small plastic case that weighs under ten pounds. The clock is a normal clock with hands. The other Crown kit contains an eight digit calculator, cassette recorder, and AM/FM radio. (Mqdel CL-110R at $319.95). If they don’t sell many, it’s because Crown has missed the point. Just putting the clock (but a digit clock, huh guys?) from kit one into the set of functions of kit two would be an improvement. Then, if the>Cd mate it with Panasonic’s Model TR-475 ($169.95) which includes a 5 inch screen tv and AM/FM radio, it might work. The problem with the Panasonic’s portable tv/radio is that it’s just too big and heavy and that it only operates in the U.S.

As I’ve said, nobody’s made a portable media center yet. Since the technology is more than available to make it as an under $500 consumer item, I presume that what’s lacking is the vision of it being a consumer item (as opposed to a portable lemon). This is what worries me about the Japanese: the conservativeness of their ingenuity. If they can make a transistor radio the size of my thumb (which is size 8) which Sony is now doing for about $30 and that includes the whole radio, even the* speaker, it’s so small that the dials overlap the sides. Well, if they can do that, why can’t they see the uses to which their abilities can be put.

The answer seems to be that the Japanese don’t understand the American consumer as well as they might. They know they sell tv sets like woriton soup here, but I don’t think they’ve figured out why. They don’t know what compulsive, wired-in neurotic consumers we are. They don’t know that we’ll buy anything if we cap be first on our block with the chrome plated model. They have no grasp of our media lifestyle despite the fact they live in one themselves. They certainly don’t know that I’m having an anxiety attack waiting for them to make a mini-media center so I ean buy one.

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RCUJIR0 YOURS6LF

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Well, my book on Kung Fu (Pyramid Books, 95 cents) will be.out in January, I have more Sonys than I can use, I play with my Panasonic vtr once a week, so 'Tm not worried. But it does trouble me that the Japanese don’t understand how important it is for me to have new toys. Come on gang, all I want for Christmas is a portable media center.